There was an excellent program on UK TV last week about Leonard.

In one of his songs he recalls Janis Joplin as follows:

'Giving me head on the side of the bed..'

When interviewed about how he came to start writing poetry he said: 'Because I wanted to impress women.' Then: 'And did that work?' To which he answered traditionally deadpan: 'Yes, very well.' (ha!)

Consequently, his songs should often be seen as tributes to some of his most beautiful encounters with women.

Suzanne must certainly be in this category. It's probably one of the best crafted love songs ever written. Who was Suzanne?

I think that in later days Cohen played up to this role of deadpan troubour to extremely serious academic audiences with quite a lot of internal humour.

He also spent a long sabbatical (some years) among West Coast buddhists.

I think he probably conveyed a wide spectrum of his experiences in his songs - from the very basic to high stuff. And why not, he was an artist, not some prophet.

I can't judge about Sisters of Mercy, because I haven't listened to it in great detail.  It may be as pure as Candy says.

However, I'm still working on the guitar accompaniment for Suzanne, which is diabolically simple yet complex.

A beautiful girl-friend of mine who moved into our premie house back in 1975 used to play it to me flawlessly, which tripped me from the path of righteousness into wonderful and glorious sin from stainless premiehood for about a year.

It took me until 1978 to get back into the fold, but it was worth it.